"This is an odd world, and very remarkable things happen in it," observed Sir Patrick, with a yawn. "But you may talk till you are both in your coffins, without making anything new of this business. Your affair has been the wonder of the house for two entire days, Agnes, without a single new fact having come out, and there is De Crespigny strolled into the garden to escape being wearied to death. I really think two days long enough to discuss any one subject, and the less you annoy yourselves about it the better. If the culprit is above ground, the police will ferret her out; and my advice to both of you is, to eat your puddings for the next month without sugar!"
Agnes assumed a look of majestic ire at this very cavalier allusion to her adventure, and threw herself back in her arm-chair, with an exceedingly ill-used aspect, heaving a succession of indignant sighs, which continued most provokingly unnoticed till they amounted at last almost to groans of suppressed anger, while Sir Patrick, taking up the "Times," concluded, by saying, in a tone of absent, careless indifference,
"One has no leisure now to be happy and sorry about everything that occurs. I remember once seeing a very impudent, forward-looking actress perform Juliet at Covent-Garden, when De Crespigny whispered to me, in his droll way, 'Depend upon it, this is not the first lover whom that young lady has met on a balcony!' and you may depend upon it, Agnes, this is not the first poisoning experiment your abigail has attempted: I hope she will never try her skill on me! What would you say if she were to administer a dose of zinc some day, and turn you blue! I often wonder that no jealous woman ever wreaked her vengeance in that way! It would be a capital joke!"
Agnes had been greatly flattered, and if any attention to herself could have surprised her, she might have been astonished at the intense interest almost inadvertently betrayed by Captain De Crespigny, in the mysterious circumstances of her lately discovered danger. When the particulars were first mentioned, he turned as pale as death, and asked with startling eagerness, for a minute description of the abigail's appearance, to which he listened with almost breathless attention. From that moment he became indefatigable in his efforts to trace out the fugitive, in which he seemed most truly and heartily in earnest, writing advertisements himself for the newspapers, to offer a reward for her apprehension, and never seeming to tire of hearing all that could be remembered or related, respecting the period of her being first engaged by Agnes, her dress, manner, age, and appearance, while his color varied visibly from red to pale several times during the narration.
"It is altogether most flattering to me!" observed Agnes next day, when pointing all this out to Sir Patrick. "Captain De Crespigny has been sometimes most maliciously accused of insincerity towards young ladies; but when he is in earnest you see how very much in earnest he is! It would be impossible for him to be more deeply interested and agitated on the occasion, if his own life, instead of mine, had been endangered. I wish everybody else had shown as much feeling!" added she, glancing angrily at Sir Patrick, who was carelessly whistling a tune, and beating time with a riding whip on his boot. "Well!" exclaimed Agnes, getting more and more irritated, "if I did not see that one person at least cares more for me in the world than you do, I would be ready yet, without giving Dixon the trouble, to poison myself! I would spend my last shilling on a dose of arsenic!"
"I am not sure that poisoning in such a case would be the best plan!" replied Sir Patrick, describing circles on the carpet with his whip, and speaking in a tone of most provoking nonchalance. "In the first place, if people are so very indifferent, it might be no great punishment to them; and besides, I do not exactly see how poisoning would improve your own prospects, either in this world or the next! In respect to my friend De Crespigny, it is quite a catch for any idle man like him, when something occurs that he can be interested in, for he was dying of too much leisure; but as for his ever falling seriously in love with any young lady in the creation, let me warn you, Agnes, once for all, that there cannot be a more hopeless hope invented or dreamed of."
CHAPTER XVI.
Marion found it more and more difficult every day, to account for the bitter, angry contempt with which Agnes spoke of Clara Granville, her dislike to whom never seemed for an hour to lie dormant, as she was perpetually making allusions to her, which caused very frequent irritation between herself and Sir Patrick, who sometimes angrily left the room, and yet occasionally joined in her invectives against the whole Granville family, in a tone of reckless, angry derision, which was to Marion completely perplexing and unaccountable. If Agnes felt dull or out of spirits, she complained of being excessively Granville-ish; or if Sir Patrick were observed for a wonder, in any single instance, to economise, she called him a Granville-ist; but if her brother either laughed, or flung himself out of the room, according to the humor he was in, it was in a fit of Granville-ism; and Marion became surprised to perceive that the mention of that name was never, even by chance, like that of any other name, a subject of indifference; and conscious that some secret was connected with it, not imparted to her, she carefully avoided all allusion to Clara.
Agnes one day jestingly announced to Sir Patrick that the Granvilles had taken out perpetual tickets at the Charitable Soup Kitchen, and meant to dine there every day on broth; and the next morning she rather inconsistently found fault with them, because at least twenty poor people assembled at their lodgings every day, to be fed, as if it were a House of Refuge.
Marion observed that all the innumerable books for charitable subscriptions, which were circulated from door to door, Agnes liked to examine, for the gossiping amusement of ascertaining how much was given by each or her friends, though never for the purpose of adding her own name, as her purse was a complete valetudinarian, always complaining of exhaustion, yet always capable of any exertion dictated by inclination; and Sir Patrick also, though he generally swore an impatient oath or two, when he saw the succession of dingy looking books brought into the drawing-room, sometimes amused himself with a supercilious glance at the contents.